September Collector Club newsletter!

 Greetings, readers! I bring you good tidings - yon Collector Club newsletter hath been released to the world! Sorry for the old-timey language - a friend and I spent the day at a Renaissance festival and I'm still getting over that. Anyway, back to the newsletter.  I see we're back to releasing it on the last day of the month again. At least they got it published, eh? Anyway, this month's edition of the newsletter features a giveaway of a Rhenish Draft model from this year's Breyerfest to three lucky winners, and is supposed to have a feature story about Carltonlima Emma, the Fell Pony belonging to the recently-deceased Queen Elizabeth II, but there seems to be some type of technical issue with that, because the article won't load for me, nor does it show up on my Collector Club home page. Let's hope they get that fixed soon. Also, the newsletter has this tantalizing sneak peek! 

Looks like a possibly-glossy palomino PAM? Some people have been guessing Esprit, which could be the case, but my first thought was the PAM when I saw the photo (and Esprit has been done in this shade of palomino already, so I don't think they'd do it again). Apparently it's a "web exclusive." Maybe it's the holiday mare and foal set? Ooh, unicorn PAM could be interesting. It could also be some kind of Christmas set like last year's Snickerdoodle. Let's hope we don't have to wait too long to find out! 

A bear! A bear, all covered in hair! And other news.

 Finally, some news in this long drought of no-news-ness! Sorry, I'm too chronically-sleep-deprived to come up with a better term than that. But anyway - NEWS! First, Breyer has a new test run model for Collector Club members to enter for - and it's a BEAR! 

The paintjob is pretty detailed, really, but I guess it is a test model, after all. From the website:

For the first time ever, we’re offering up a non-equine test run model for one lucky Collector Club member to purchase! First introduced in 1967, the Bear was sculpted by Breyer’s in-house sculptor and tooling engineer, Chris Hess. The Bear is sometimes found with a Bear Cub, and other times released solo. This particular Bear is the latter, and is painted as a lovely, shaded brown with handpainted claws, likely dating to the early 2000s.

Handpainted claws! Nice. It's a little too expensive for me though, and I don't collect the animal molds anyway. Good luck to everyone entering! 

Our other exciting piece of news today is: the Classics gambler's choice model is finally in stock! Say hello (again) to Johann! 

 

They'll go up for sale tomorrow around 2pm EST. I'm not buying any of these either - so that's a few more for the other Collector Club members to buy! I'm sure they'll sell out fast, so don't dawdle about purchasing them. Good luck tomorrow, everyone! And let's hope we get some more exciting announcements soon! 

Featured Model - 9/24/22, Test Mauvelous Big Ben

 Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model I don't own but may have an interesting story behind it, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it. This week's model is...the 2007 Breyerfest Live Auction test Mauvelous on Big Ben! Whew, that was kind of a mouthful. 

As that jumble of text indicated, this model was a test sold off at the 2007 Breyerfest Live Auction. He was a OOAK done on the Big Ben mold sculpted by Kathleen Moody. His colorway was first seen on the Mauvelous release from 2002 and later on the G2 Arabian in 2006. It's always fun to see how various iconic paint jobs look on other sculpts! Big Ben certainly looks handsome in grullo overo. I wonder what he would have looked like with a coat of gloss? 

Big Ben has certainly had plenty of moments in the sun - he was most recently used as Brahms at Breyerfest 2022 - so it's hard to say where we'll see him next. We've already seen this year's TSC models, so that leaves the last couple of web specials for the year, plus the special runs for Ponies & Palm Trees and maybe a few other things. He'd fit in pretty well at Ponies & Palm Trees, actually. Maybe we'll see him there! Centerpiece giveaway, perhaps? 

Featured Model - 9/17/2022, Life Guards of the Queen's Household Cavalry

 Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model I don't own but may have an interesting story behind it, give some stats on and and provide commentary about it. With respect to the passing of Queen Elizabeth II (RIP), this week's model is...the Life Guards of the Queen's Household Cavalry! 

This model and tack set was item #3368, released on the Trakehner mold sculpted by Chris Hess. He was a limited edition of 5,000 produced in 2003. 

I've seen it said that QEII was a Breyer collector, and one of her horses was produced as a Breyer at least once before (Burmese), so it's probably safe to assume she had at least one of these in her collection. Maybe more than one! Who knows. I don't have one myself, though I did want one around the time they first came out. Okay, it would still be cool to have one just for the tack set, but I'm not a Trakehner collector. It looks like they put quite a bit of effort and attention to detail into this set (but then, they usually do). I kinda like the posed Breyer riders marching in the background on the box, too. I suppose the prices on these will go up now that the Queen has passed on, though. Oh well. 

As for the Trakehner, he recently had a warehouse find release, which is good, because he hasn't had all that many releases in general - his most recent release before that was Thorn for Breyerfest 2020. It's hard to say where we'll see him next, although I suspect he may make a micro run appearance at the Ponies & Palm Trees event in November. I guess we'll have to wait and see! 

Ooh, Spooky!

 Good news, everyone - this year's Halloween items have been announced! Breyer's Halloween store will open on the website at 1PM EST tomorrow. Look at the goodies they'll have for us! Other than Maelstrom, this year's Halloween horse we already knew about, check out the Classics/Freedom Series release for this year! 

I love this one! Her name is Tabitha and I think it fits her really well. Too bad I'm not a Mariah collector, but I bet she'd go really well with the purple/blue Gran Cavallo from last year! And she glows in the dark, natch. Breyer really likes those interference paints lately, huh? 

And here are the blind bag (sigh) Stablemates for this year! 

I'm not thrilled about blind bags rearing their ugly heads again, but the Samhain and Mischief Night patterns do look pretty good in miniature. Apparently Samhain's green areas glow in the dark, which could be an interesting sight. It's good to see new releases on these molds, too - it seems like a lot of the Stablemates molds get left out in the cold for some reason. I suppose I'll order two of these (the number I would buy if I was allowed to pick the ones I want) and hope I actually get the ones I want. 

And check out this year's plush! 

His name is Skelly! Cute as usual! Not sure what the orange stripes on his lower legs are supposed to be, though. Oh well. 

There's also a Maelstrom pin and hoodie - I'm sorely tempted by both, but I tend to favor zippered hoodies lately, so I don't know if I'll bite. I guess we'll see how fast they sell out! Good luck, everyone! 

Fall Releases are announced!

 Exciting news, everyone - Breyer's fall releases have been announced! Say hello to the Fall Decorator, Jewels:

Dealers are only being allowed to purchase 18 of these initially, but there's no word on whether they'll join the regular line next year like Equidae did. So I guess we'll have to wait and see. 

Next, here's this year's brick-and-mortar special run! 

Certainly an interesting color on Bobby Jo, and she's glossy! She's limited to 3,000 pieces, but not all of them will be delivered this year due to shipping delays (as usual). So get your orders in early! 

There's also a new puzzle, featuring many popular unicorn releases over the years - including a flipped Alaric! Check it out: 

Seems weird to see Huck flipped like that. Oh well. Uh, he also needs to look where he's going before he trots right off that cliff and ends up in the water! Haha. 

None of this is anything I need - it's been a great year for cutting back on my model horse purchases! That gloss on Kendall is pretty nice, though.

Jameson has been delayed

 Most people have probably figured it out today, but there was an email from Breyer for Stablemates Club members today, explaining that the next release in the club (Jameson, glossy black pinto G1 Drafter) has been delayed until the end of October. Ouch! That's a pretty big delay, but they seem to think October's release will come in around the same time, so maybe they'll both be available at the same time. Let's hope so! 

Featured Model - 9/10/2022, Small Poodle

 Hello and welcome to another edition of Featured Model, the weekly blog event where I pick a model I don't own but may have an interesting story behind it, give some stats on it and provide commentary about it. Featured Model has been on hiatus for a few weeks due to our move, but our triumphant return makes a bit of a departure from the norm with the Small Poodle! 

This mysterious poodle mold was apparently created in the 1950s and then promptly lost to time until the above test piece surfaced in the mid-1990s (the photo is a scan from the JAH article of the time). This discovery prompted Reeves to check their mold archive and sure enough, the Small Poodle was there (apparently it was mislabeled or mistaken as Breyer's more-well-known Poodle mold). 

While the above Poodle has a broken tail, other releases since that time have had intact tails. After the mold's rediscovery, four models in four different colors were produced and then raffled off in a surprise raffle at Breyerfest 1997. The mold later surfaced again in 2009 as Cotton Candy, a pink poodle produced for the Breyerfest Birthday Bash, but things have been pretty quiet since then (I don't think Cotton Candy was a very good seller). 

Will we ever see the Small Poodle mold again? A test on it was sold at the Breyerfest Live Auction in 2000, but the mold has (as far as we know) been dormant since 2009. Maybe Breyer will do a micro run on it some holiday season? They seem to like doing animal micro-runs around Christmas, so maybe one of these years we'll get a Small Poodle. Otherwise, I don't anticipate much activity for the mold, but you never know!

More TSC Additions and Hope!

 Good news, everyone - my other TSC order has arrived, as well as my Hope horse! Let's start with the TSC set: 

As you can see on the box, this is the Desert Paint Horse Family on the Classic Black Stallion, Harper and Classic Morgan Foal. 

I plan on selling the stallion and foal, so they're still in the box. But here's some shots of the Harper:

I really like her color - she's chestnut, but has a metallic or some type of sheen to her coat, which I found interesting.

I'm still hoping to get my hands on those new mystery unicorn foal sets, as well as the Alborozo from the blind bags - with any luck I'll find those soon.

I wasn't terribly impressed with the eyes on these - it's a little hard to see here, but they're basically just glopped-on black with no detail. Somebody cheaped out there; that happens a lot with Classics though. 

Anyway, let's move on to Hope! 

Her color is much more interesting than the promo photos made it look - she has a purple sheen over most of her body except the mane and tail, which have a blue sheen. Cool! 

Pretty similar to last year's Raider in the Stablemates Club, actually.

I really like the blue sheen, but I really liked it on the Omega Fahim models as well, and I'm partial to blue anyway, so I may be biased.

I also liked the box design for this release - no plastic to be seen! Even the ties holding the model into the box (like the old touchability boxes with a slipcase over top of it) were paper rather than wire or plastic. Let's see more of that, please! I always feel a little bad throwing empty Breyer boxes in the recycling bin, not knowing if they bother to recycle any of it (presumably the inserts are recyclable, but I don't know about the plastic fronts?). 

Anyway, another great release from Breyer, and it's always good to see a new release on Bouncer.

Let's hope we get some exciting announcements soon! I feel like we're in a bit of a dry spell, news-wise. 

Some Tractor Supply new arrivals!

 Greetings, readers! Well, I've managed to lay hands on some of the new TSC releases - not quite all of them as yet, but I'll get there. I ordered the Classics set with American Dream, and also the Classics family set (which hasn't arrived yet) to be shipped to the store in the same town where my husband works, so he was able to pick that up - but I also ordered six of the new blind bags, but the website defaulted to a different nearby store for some reason, so I had to make a drive down there to get the blind bags. Anyway, I'll start with the bay American Dream! 

He looks good in bay, and the white at the bottom of his tail is a nice touch.

So does that make him an extremely minimally-marked sabino? Interesting. 

Anyway, here's the foal, who I haven't removed from the box yet as I don't intend to keep it: 

And here are the results of my six-blind-bag gamble:

I only wanted the Walkaloosa, the pinto Emma, and the black pinto Alborozo, so two out of three ain't bad. It makes me wish I liked the G4 Vaulting Horse, because they keep using that blue pinto on molds I don't like! I don't know what it is about this one, but he's just ugly to me (and normally I like draft models). To each their own, I guess. I do like the mini Emma, too - it's about time she (well, actually he) got a new color. Guess I'll be looking for buyers for the extras. 

Also, it appears that the waitlist emails have gone out for Ponies & Palm Trees, so make sure to check your email! Make sure to check your spam folder, too, as it looks like these emails are coming from a Breyer staffer, not necessarily the website. I wasn't drawn from the waitlist this time, but maybe there'll be a few rounds of waitlists. Crossing my fingers!